


And/Or

by JWAB



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Ficlets, M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-02-20 07:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2419454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JWAB/pseuds/JWAB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Notes on how Aramis and d’Artagnan are alike and the delightful ways they differ. A catalog, perhaps, or a meditation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I could go on forever about this, and I just may.  
> For CreepingMuse, latbfan, and the ladies of the Literary and Science Salon.

Aramis is a light sleeper. The slightest creak or whisper, even a scurrying mouse inevitably rouses him. A decade of soldiering will do that. D’Artagnan sleeps like the dead, like a child almost, his mouth open against the pillow, Aramis’ shoulder, his own arm. Every time he shifts in his sleep, easily a dozen times each night, he awakens Aramis. But Aramis doesn’t mind. It’s an excuse to gather d’Artagnan closer in the dark, to nuzzle his neck, to breathe deep the scent he is coming to need like air.

Brown eyes, yes, but nowhere near alike. D’Artagnan is sure he could drown in the dark charm and hunger of Aramis’ gaze, especially in candlelight. Only in direct sun can he make out the distinction between the true black center and the ebony brown rim, nearly black like his tremendous mop of curls. Aramis luxuriates in d’Artagnan’s luscious bay stallion coloring. He attends the russets, coals, siennas, and mahoganies of d’Artagnan’s skin, hair, and eyes like an artist views a garden – memorizing, capturing them, trying somehow to understand them, especially those improbably light eyes that appear lit from within. He has to know how striking he is. For all d’Artagnan’s cavalier inattention to fashion, Aramis suspects it’s no coincidence that his cassia leather doublet reflects the exact shade of those fiery eyes.

Aramis realizes how much a pair of bowed legs can undo him when he kneels before d’Artagnan the first time. Lean ones, strong and well-built, but intriguingly _curved_. Who knew how stirring they could be? Aramis strokes his palms over the subtle arc of their outer lines, bones and tendons and muscles straining outward against them. He strokes slowly, all the way down to d’Artagnan’s ankles and then up again, brushing the sparse straight hair against the grain to where his skin is warm and totally smooth. He holds onto them, wraps his arms around them and braces d’Artagnan there as he licks along the underside of his cock. He feels it jolt away from his tongue and catches it, playfully, with his lips. D'Artagnan's hips buck and grind and, under his arms, Aramis can feel the bow in d’Artagnan’s legs somehow deepen. Or maybe it’s him deepening as he opens, as he wills his throat not to betray him. Anyway, Aramis thinks he may very well die when those glorious legs tremble as d’Artagnan spends into his mouth. And then it seems every day thereafter, always at the most inopportune times, when he catches a glimpse of d’Artagnan’s legs (running, bending, astride his mount, crossed, standing at attention) he cannot help but recall what _else_ is tantalizingly curved.

D’Artagnan swears he didn't know that his nipples are almost unbearably sensitive, that one hard suck at the right moment will send him over the proverbial edge with a surprised groan. Aramis has to discover it for himself. But Aramis is at his best with this sort of research. And so he dedicates himself to learning how to use this marvelous erotic key: he licks, sucks, bites, twirls circles with the trembling point of his tongue. Nights of experimentation under and over Aramis and d’Artagnan emerges heavy-lidded and quiet. Alone, d’Artagnan confesses that it makes him feel almost like a woman to have such sensitive breasts, to arch his back and press his nipple into Aramis’ mouth. Aramis confesses that he’s a bit jealous, honestly.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Athos and Porthos drink themselves to oblivion – Athos to suffocate pain, Porthos to augment joy. But although Aramis and d’Artagnan have each been known to chase despair to the dregs of a bottle, neither would choose to overindulge under ordinary circumstances. One glass of wine and good company, they agree, is the ideal arrangement. And so it is Aramis and d’Artagnan who lug their two friends home – Aramis supporting Porthos’ wide, squirming shoulders, d’Artagnan bracing wine-soaked, soft Athos. They smile and blink at each other over the drooping heads of their companions. In town they deliver them safely to their beds, but even camped a quarter mile in from the treeline, Aramis and d’Artagnan lay Athos and Porthos back, incoherent with drink, onto the cold dirt. Side by side for warmth, they drape a blanket over their two snoring friends and then sigh to know that they have the entire blessed night to themselves.

No collars, not for either of them. They run hot. Aramis strains at hard leather under his jaw, constricting his jugular. D’Artagnan hates the rub of a harsh collar against his Adam’s apple when he swallows. No, they prefer the cool caress of linen against their skin. They want the whisper of wind at their throats, the play of a breeze’s ethereal fingers in wisps of hair at their collarbones. But it is distracting. D’Artagnan has learned how a warm tongue, honed to a hard point, can melt his Aramis when it traces the long muscles of his neck. And oh, he wants to. He wants to palm the thickest part of Aramis’ bicep and press him against the wall outside the tavern at this very moment. He can well imagine the filthy bedtime look Aramis would give him, slow and hungry under long lashes, and how his lips would open, but as much as d’Artagnan craves that mouth, he would make them both wait as he first drags his trembling tongue along Aramis’ gorgeously exposed neck.

D’Artagnan is gloriously impatient. From the moment Aramis dresses in the morning, d’Artagnan torments him with touches, words, expressions, reminding him what awaits them both behind one or the other’s closed door once the day ends. In the cool dark of the stable d’Artagnan drags his hand, tensed into a claw, over Aramis’ inner thigh, scraping lines into the leather with his nails. As he walks by him he brushes his hip into Aramis, slowly enough to catch against Aramis’ cock even under leather and linen. Aramis makes it a game, lingering around corners, just inside doorways, where he knows d’Artagnan will find him to catch his wrist, squeeze his waist, whisper “later” hot against his ear.

Aramis speaks with his eyes. He winks comments to Porthos and glares warnings at Athos. D’Artagnan discovered how much he loved that spark of eye contact back when Aramis was not more than an intriguing mentor if slightly dangerous in his beauty and smooth, so smooth in situations d’Artagnan could never have handled with such grace. Even then his pulse raced when Aramis turned his dark eyes on him, brimming with intensity, almost too much for one person to field, certainly too much for d’Artagnan then. But now, oh, now Aramis makes promises with his gaze, kissing and kneading d’Artagnan just with his eyes. In the bright public daylight, d’Artagnan watches Aramis more than he should but less than he wants to, knowing Aramis must sense his need, feel it like steam on his skin. And just when d’Artagnan has nearly given up, Aramis finally returns his fire with a simmering gaze of his own that resembles nothing so much as the bare, throbbing desire Aramis turns on a candle lit d’Artagnan in the thrumming moment before he finally pushes inside.


	3. Chapter 3

Aramis’ hips shift under the weight of sword, powder, and musket, strapped and harnessed to his frame. For expedience, he says. For ease of use. His weapons dangle, unwieldy, from waist, shoulder, and hip, and d’Artagnan knows they would amount to nothing but tin if not for Aramis’ lithe strength beneath all that leather, all those buckles. He knows the thick belt over Aramis’ hips lays heavy just above his cock; he can well imagine how it must sensitize each step. And when d’Artagnan unwraps Aramis after the long day, when he unfastens him from his deadly tools, he lays each piece aside and lays his Aramis finally bare. Bare but not free, not entirely: in their place throb deep welts left by the weight of all those weapons. Aramis shrugs at d’Artagnan’s concern. It’s nothing, he says. They don’t hurt. But d’Artagnan knows better. It will take hours of soothing Aramis’ precious skin, of skating his fingers over paths rubbed raw by leather over linen, to erase the red lines etched there.

Aramis drizzles warm oil scented with walnut at the base of d’Artagnan’s spine. This is after d’Artagnan kissed Aramis long and deeply enough that dusk turned to night. This is after Aramis traced the lines of d’Artagnan’s chest with his tongue faithfully enough that the moon shifted in the sky so it could watch them. This is after the two of them knelt on Aramis’ lumpy mattress, pressed knee to knee, belly to belly, grinding bones and muscles together, tugging at each other’s shoulders and hips desperately enough that d’Artagnan could wait no longer. He guided Aramis’ hand to the top of the slit they had both, by mutual, silent agreement, pretended did not exist. Yes, after all of this, beneath a moon gaping in anticipation, d’Artagnan finally pressed Aramis’ finger into this slit and oh, Aramis moaned his acquiescence between d’Artagnan’s lips. Now Aramis drizzles the fragrant oil, warmed inside his fevered fist, where d’Artagnan’s sparse peach fuzz gathers dark and points down, down.

D’Artagnan asks if the stories about him are true. Which stories? The women, d’Artagnan answers, his eyes caramel in the candlelight, his lips still soft and stretched. Aramis tells d’Artagnan about Adele, whose nails were as sharp as her tongue, whose appetite and capacity for ecstasy seemed nearly infinite. Aramis hid under her skirts and licked her swollen and slick. Aramis slipped inside her from behind, rocking into her relentlessly, yes, but gently, bending her over her writing desk, over an unfinished letter to the Cardinal. Adele, Aramis confides, was eager to shed every last layer of fabric, to fuck him entirely unfettered. She rode him at a canter, then a gallop, smashing her headboard against the wall with every thrust, enough to loosen dust clouds of plaster. She held her own breasts, Aramis tells d’Artagnan, while he wound one thumb, then the other, in jagged circles over her berry until she came, giggling, wilting onto his chest. Aramis clutched her arse when she climbed him, braced her against the closet door as he pushed until his arms and thighs shook. She was wild, Aramis tells him. Wild as a forest.

Your first boy, Aramis asks. Tell me. D’Artagnan will tell him, as soon as he’s shifted onto his side to face him, as soon as he’s uncovered the memories he tucked carefully away. He was pale as milk and twice as sweet. Martin. Did you love him? D’Artagnan tells Aramis that Martin’s eyes were always, always sad, even when he smiled, even when he laughed. D’Artagnan tells Aramis how they rutted against each other, biting each other’s shoulders in the cool stable, burrowing deeper and deeper into the hay until they were almost buried in it. D’Artagnan tells Aramis how Martin swiped his mother’s bodice once, how he laced Martin into it, turned him around in his hands, kissed down his flat, hairless chest to where his small pink nipples peeked out the top. That was all Martin needed to come, just the pressure of the bodice on his ribs and d’Artagnan’s lips on his skin. Did you love him? D’Artagnan lays his palm on Aramis’ jaw and slowly kisses his lips open. Of course you did. Of course you did.


	4. Chapter 4

They live sealed behind leather. It keeps them safer than without it but now, when they are finally alone, it keeps their bodies cruelly apart. Some days, some nights they take their time, unfasten buckles and belts with teasing nips and raised eyebrows. But tonight d’Artagnan resents every layer that separates him from Aramis’ skin. Mind the buttons, Aramis chides, chuckling lightly at the thick impatience in d’Artagnan’s eyes. I’m not going anywhere, he assures him. But d’Artagnan cannot wait, not while there is a hard cock behind Aramis’ straps, not while his hips twitch with need. Not while his mind still rehearses the afternoon’s scuffle, the ways it could have gone wrong, the blur of the sword that could have sliced through this leather-encased body he now holds, tighter than he needs to. To erase the endless variations of death that await them both, to calm his blood, he gives up on buttons and throws Aramis against the wall. Aramis acquiesces, licking his lips just in time for d’Artagnan to seize them. Aramis feathers a touch to d’Artagnan’s cheek; d’Artagnan threads his fingers through Aramis’ to press their joined hands to the wall above Aramis’ head. Another kiss, deeper this time, and d’Artagnan’s thrusts are messy and desperate. Aramis tries to meet them, to find his rhythm, but d’Artagnan has Aramis pinned to the wall with palm and lips and chest and hips, rutting against him, his breath a heavy rasp in Aramis’ ear.

D’Artagnan rarely expresses his enthusiasm with words, so Aramis learns his lexicon of groans and breaths. D’Artagnan suggests with a slow hiss and a gentle curl of his hips  that Aramis might open his lips for him. And Aramis understands, he does, but tonight Aramis wants to challenge him. Tell me, he insists, dragging his body up over d’Artagnan’s to whisper it against his mouth. D’Artagnan moans, pressing his cock along his lover’s. I don’t understand, Aramis shrugs. Shut up, d’Artagnan complains and captures Aramis’ lips, sucking hard. I don’t know what you want, Aramis says, tell me. Tell me what you want. You know, d’Artagnan argues, come on. Tell me and I’ll do it. Tell me, d’Artagnan, anything. And Aramis waits, hovering too far away for a kiss, too high for bodies to blend. D’Artagnan pulls at Aramis’ hips, lifts his head, but Aramis is stronger than he and eases away. Tell me what to do, Aramis whispers with a will of steel. I want, d’Artagnan begins: Aramis’ eyes fill with eagerness and stars. Tell me. Kiss me. Aramis does, a nearly chaste peck. Kiss my neck. Aramis does, another dry peck. Not like that. How? Open your mouth. Heat flares in d’Artagnan’s chest. Suck. Use your tongue. Aramis does, sinking down over d’Artagnan with a groan. He lifts his face to meet d’Artagnan’s eyes. What else? Tell me. Lower. D’Artagnan bends his knee beside Aramis’ leg, then the other, holding Aramis between his thighs. Tell me, d’Artagnan, tell me what you want. I want, d’Artagnan repeats but stops: this is ridiculous, Aramis always knows, why should he be made to say it aloud? I want, he repeats: the heat in his chest is a tangle of embarrassment and desire. D’Artagnan closes his eyes to say it: I want you to open me. How, my love? Tell me how. With your strong, slow fingers and (Aramis kisses him, open your eyes, please, and d’Artagnan does) yes, that too, with that wise tongue. And then? And then (Aramis curls a thrust against d’Artagnan, lips heavy and open), and then I want you to fuck me, Aramis, wrap your fingers around my cock and fuck yourself into me until we both come.

They are both brave men. Valiant in the face of peril. Fearless, one might say, but that isn’t exactly right, is it? This time it is d’Artagnan in danger, captured from under their noses, and Aramis’ mind that howls with fear. _Dangerously impulsive_ is Treville’s assessment because he cannot wait, cannot sit, cannot think. Must act. Mercifully, Athos is best in moments like these. He consults with Treville and Porthos and he gives Aramis clear orders to follow. Together they track the kidnappers, it only takes hours but it feels like months, and when they find him, when Porthos pounds the lackeys’ brains into a pink pulp and Athos slices the sneakiest one nearly in two and Aramis shoots a ragged hole in the ringleader’s face, it is of course Aramis who unties the gag between d’Artagnan’s lips and brushes the dirt from his forehead while Athos cuts through the heavy rope binding his arms around the pole behind him. Are you hurt? Aramis needs to know, needs to be the one to put him back together. He feels for brokenness over neck, head, arms, chest and sides and belly and hips: this time I wasn’t sure, this time, thank God. D’Artagnan tried to fight, his blood-crusted knuckles and the purple bruise blooming over his left eyebrow make it plain, but he was just one man and that, _that_ is why they work as a team, why it always must be all for one. Because they have so very much to lose. Athos gives a quick squeeze to d’Artagnan’s numb shoulder where it was contorted back for far too long; Porthos smoothes his hair, you didn’t think we’d let you off so easily, and goes to gather the horses with Athos. They leave Aramis to kneel before d’Artagnan and frame his face with careful hands again and again, tracing its lines, murmuring prayers of thanksgiving while he kisses d’Artagnan’s eyebrow and his cheek and his forehead and his wrecked, cracking lips with gentle reverence.

 


End file.
